Hi all, thanks in advanced. I am not an electrical engineer, with very little background on such work. At best, I am a hobbyist who would like to try to repair my faulty diving torch. I received a faulty torch from one of my purchases online and it seems like the button is faulty as it is completed depressed and does not react to touch so it does not activate the light so the device is almost useless.

I have included a photo of the faulty switch. Is anyone able to advice me how I can go about repairing this, including what switch this is, and as I do not have easy access to the underside of the chip, am I able to sort it out from this face alone with a soldering iron and a replacement switch.

Thanks and please help me out with your knowledge and experience. I reckon just changing the switch to a working one will solve my problem.

 

Hi all, thanks in advanced. I am not an electrical engineer, with very little background on such work. At best, I am a hobbyist who would like to try to repair my faulty diving torch. I received a faulty torch from one of my purchases online and it seems like the button is faulty as it is completed depressed and does not react to touch so it does not activate the light so the device is almost useless.

I have included a photo of the faulty switch. Is anyone able to advice me how I can go about repairing this, including what switch this is, and as I do not have easy access to the underside of the chip, am I able to sort it out from this face alone with a soldering iron and a replacement switch.

Thanks and please help me out with your knowledge and experience. I reckon just changing the switch to a working one will solve my problem.

If it was me, I'd go down in the basement to my pile of junk and search for a similar replacement. These little switches are used everywhere these days although it might be tricky to find one the right size.

If I couldn't find one on hand, I'd go straight to Mouser, DigiKey or Newark and start shopping. But before I bought one, I'd probably remove the old one and verify that manually connecting the two sides still does what I expect. I'd hate to replace the switch only to learn there's some other problem.

 

Hi wayneh, thanks for the reply. So i have ordered a switch that looks exactly similar to this. Any advice on how to switch the old one with the new one? What do I solder the new switch to?

 

Hi wayneh, thanks for the reply. So i have ordered a switch that looks exactly similar to this. Any advice on how to switch the old one with the new one? What do I solder the new switch to?

It appears the switch is soldered to a pad on each end. It's small and you might want to practice your soldering on something else for a while before tackling this. Just tear open some dead electronic appliance and remove some components. You need to get your iron to a nice temperature (hot, but not crazy hot) and you'll need some good solder. There's a lot of info here if you need more details. Once you get the first side done, the second will be easy. But you may need a tool to hold the switch in place while you solder the first side.